


Elemental

by dfastback68



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Sentient Jaegers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-09-17
Packaged: 2017-12-26 21:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dfastback68/pseuds/dfastback68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four Jaegers, four elements, four shorts. The fight for humanity continues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Air

Truthfully, none of them liked flying. The entire process, from start to finish, was as uncomfortable as it was tedious. They had to hold still in order to get harnessed, they had to hold still while getting lifted, and _then_ they had to hold still during the entire flight. If they didn’t hang limp, any undo movement ran the risk of sending their Jumphawks crashing into one another. The constant tug of gravity reminded them of just how heavy they were, and how much it would hurt if they fell. And not just themselves – the earth suffered every time a Jaeger went down, and so did the people if they were in a city.

It was the only feasible option for long distance deployment, unfortunately. When they were shipped between Shatterdomes, they typically went on a freighter by sea. Going that route was preferable, but you couldn’t risk a ship when kaiju were in the water. Air drops were simply the most cost effective, efficient way to meet the enemy head on.

There was one thing Crimson Typhoon liked about it, though – the people. Whether they were flown by a major city or through the rural areas, there were _always_ people. In the fields those people would stop what they were doing, lifting up their sore backs and shielding their eyes from the sun when they heard the choppers. In the cities and villages they would come out onto the streets to stop and stare, sometimes pointing as if it wasn’t obvious what was passing overhead.

Seeing a Jaeger in person was a mixed bag – parades simply didn’t happen anymore, and if a Jaeger was present, that tended to mean kaiju weren’t far off. Nonetheless, it was a sight no one wanted to miss. Jaegers were sheer power, physical proof of what the world was capable of when it put its greatest minds together. Here, in his home country, the reaction was even more powerful. People waved and cheered, and he wished he could wave back.

Someday, Jin had promised him. Someday there will be no more kaiju and you can come see the people in Hong Kong with us. In all of China, even. You can tell them yourself the way they made you feel.

Which was pride, more than anything. Not that cocky, egotistical strut certain Jaegers and their pilots had, the ones that lapped up the media attention like that’s what they were fighting for. No, Crimson Typhoon was proud of the country he was defending. He was proud of the people that had the courage to stand behind him when others wanted to live behind a wall. He was proud of his pilots, the Wei triplets, and how hard they fought and how they’d helped put him together. He was proud of what the combination of these things led to: survival of the human race.

All of these people, in China and the rest of the world, they believed in him. He only saw it, _really_ honestly saw it, when they flew over these populated areas. They waved not to say hello, but to say thank you.

Thank you, and good luck.


	2. Water

This was the closest she could get to weightlessness.

Caught in a submarine current, Gipsy Danger let herself get carried towards the immense drop off into the depths of the Pacific. It was a slow process, but she wasn’t in a hurry. There were no kaiju in the water, their drill had finished over an hour ago, and Mako and Raleigh saw no reason not to indulge her. They let the reins go, so to speak, their only limit being their oxygen supply.

The current slowed her descent some, enough to alleviate the all too familiar ache of being dragged down to the earth. She was in a free fall, arms and legs spread eagle to let the ocean take her wherever it wanted. For a few moments she was able to coast on her back, watching the sun ripple through the waves above, and she was reminded of summers on the lake. Those were Raleigh’s memories, of course, but something about sun and water and warmth was instinctively comforting to her.

All too soon, though, her feet hit the murky ocean floor, sending up great plumes of silt. Gipsy’s knees bent as all her weight kept trying to go down, until she pushed back and stood upright. After a moment’s calibration, she started walking, kicking off slightly to take advantage of the meager buoyancy she had here. Moving wasn’t as hard on her joints in the water, giving her a sort of freedom that seemed contradictory in nature. She didn’t walk so much as leap, sometimes jumping from one spot to the next with both feet locked together.

When she ran out of flat space before the drop off, she turned and did it again. This time she ducked forward and rolled, heels over head, spinning once before straightening out and skipping a few more strides. Mako gave her encouraging suggestions, while Raleigh relived the memories of sitting through his little sister’s gymnastics classes. The practical part of them knew this would be considered a waste of resources; the wild streak that ran through the three of them didn’t care. Why fight for your life if you couldn’t live it?

And for the first time in her life, Gipsy Danger did a handstand. It was exhilarating, really, for a machine that wasn’t built to lift her knee up past her hip. She did a cartwheel next. She did a back flip, though it was so slow underwater she could only imagine how Crimson Typhoon would laugh at her. She let herself move in ways that physics and gravity wouldn’t allow her on dry land, relishing every second of it. Before too long, the oxygen levels in the conn-pod hit their safety buffer. It was time to go back.

Not far off, she could see the floodlights from Cherno Alpha’s towering form slice through the murky water. The Russians had been running the same drill nearby, and apparently had finally come looking for them. With a lightness in her step not possible anywhere else, Gipsy turned to join her.


	3. Earth

Waves crashed along the coast, rolling over sand and ice and her feet. This far north the ocean could still meet the beach unhindered, even if the shadow of the coastal wall could be seen through the morning fog. When the wind shifted in the right direction, they could hear the sound of grinding and banging and welding and swearing.

Cherno Alpha did not like the so-called Wall of Life. It severed the humans from the ocean, which _was_ life on this planet, and she knew the wall would kill them. It was already killing them, and it was a thought that made her heart heavy until Aleksis told it would be alright. The wall did manage to funnel kaiju into a predicable path, allowing them to intercept, and that was good. It would have to be enough, they’d said, for now.

When the sight of the ocean still threatened to depress her, Sasha turned them inland instead. Cherno could not walk the land as her pilots could – she was too big. Too heavy. Trees would splinter under her every step, heat wash and exhaust and pollution would damage the fragile wildlife she wanted so badly to protect. It was unfair, really, but when she walked with Sasha and Aleksis, they made it beautiful.

Only through memories could they walk together, just the three of them. The J-techs warned them about chasing the RABIT, about going too far down into certain memories, but they ignored them. The only dangerous memories were the violent ones. The ones that triggered intense emotional reactions involved fear, and that’s not what they were after. _These_ memories… they were peace itself.

Russia was a beautiful country. She loved to see the cities and towns, but more than that she loved the forests. The fresh air of the mountains and the cold snap of snow under her feet made her feel so incredibly alive. When it was warm she remembered Sasha, only a small girl, burying her face in the grass, weaving her hands through the blades, smelling the earth and basking under the sun. She remembered Aleksis’ large hands pulling through the soil, rooting out weeds or tossing away stones that stood in the way of the garden. The smell of wet earth after a rainfall came from both of them, and she reveled in it.

In a way, she knew she came from the earth. Ores and precious metals tilled from the rock and stone and clay, put to fire and shaped into a monster that couldn’t walk her own path. She could not go where they could go, not physically, but it did not matter. Without her as she was, there would be no one left to love the earth as Sasha and Aleksis did. They sacrificed so that others did not have to, and that was simply how it was. Regret did not factor into it at all.

They gave their hearts to Russia, but their lives went to the earth. 


	4. Fire

Striker Eureka hated being late.

 _The fastest Jaeger ever built_. That’s what they’d said about him and that’s what they continued to say about him. As a Mark V, his articulation and grace were unmatched. His range of motion was outclassed only by Crimson Typhoon, and even then it was in totally different areas. So Crimson could throw a kick and he couldn’t – who cared? The speed and accuracy of his punches made up for that in spades, and Striker intended to live up to his reputation.

Even if _his_ actual speed had nothing to do with it, the kaiju that had made a catastrophic run inland was putting that reputation to the test.

The northernmost section of the city was in flames, burning out of control, and buildings that stood above even him smoldered and smoked. Windows were blown out on all levels, and the ash and sediment that hung in the air came from a building that had already collapsed. He’d felt Australia’s heat before, and it was nothing like the inferno of a burning city. The evacuation order had gone out hours ago, but the kaiju alert sirens were still wailing in the distance. Choppers swept overhead, lighting his path and looking for civilians at the same time. Striker told himself everyone had made it out safely. In the conn-pod, Hercules Hansen assured him that was the truth.

The truth, he thought bitterly, was that they were too late. The kaiju shouldn’t have made it this far to begin with, but there were simply too few Jaegers. The ten mile line had effectively vanished years ago, and the Miracle Mile hardly existed without it. A kaiju could make landfall before a Jaeger was suited up with their pilots and ready to go.

It just meant they had to be even faster. As soon as they were dropped, Striker was running, jets running hot and the pulse of his pilots beating against his own systems. Smoke choked his intakes, but he ignored the burn, letting the filters do their work. So long as clean air circulated in his conn-pod, the fires didn’t bother him the least. Hercules and Chuck would still burn – for combat, for revenge, for everyone that had fallen before them and for those who would fall if they didn’t do this now.

It was a white hot fury, ignited during the early days of the war before Striker Eureka had even been put to paper in an engineer’s dream. That fury was his fuel more than anything else that powered his systems, tempered by Herc’s experienced restraint and focused by Chuck’s raw power. All of them had been forged in fire, shaped by the blunt force of war into what they were now.

Rounding the last corner, Striker raised his balled fists and slid into their customary defensive stance. Herc and Chuck tensed as the kaiju turned towards them, white-blue flames licking around its jagged teeth in a wicked grin. Steam boiled off its hide, entire body shaking as it roared at them, raking thick talons through the concrete in a challenge.

Fight fire with fire, Striker thought, and as one they accepted that challenge. 


End file.
